Most people agree that they are worth spending a few seconds on, but it's not exactly monster critical. I consider the SEO game to be extremely competitive and so I do take the time to get a slight edge if I can. Having said that, there are other ways to get the slight edge. Brandon
I recently read something that claimed the meta tags were considered as "noise" now and absolutely no weight placed on them. Can it actually hurt your site?
I can't see that using meta tags as they were intended to be used would incur any penalty. At the worst, if used properly, they would do nothing.
Is the <title></title> tag considered a meta tag? If it is, I was not aware of that. The title tag is very important indeed. It's one of the most important things with SEO other than anchor text in your backlinks and internal links.
The meta description tag is used by google for the snippet of information next to your search results! How anybody can suggest meta tags are not used anymore I don't know. You need to write a meta description tag that is attractive to people searching rather than create it to increase your rankings. The keyword tags are considered less important but will still help your site.
Google makes this small comment regarding the keywords and description name values, You will need a modern browser to properly view the charts in this Google study, as they use svg images. If you read the study, be prepared to be surprised—at least, I was—at the amount of truly shoddy code that's out there. At one point, the authors note; cheers, gary
But, if you don't use a meta tag, Google will use the text in the body, header or other content of your webpage. That seems better because the search engine visitor will find exactly that keyword phrase in your website where it might be hidden and not even exist in the webpage if it's in the meta tag.
But if you write your own snippet you can make it attractive to searchers. If google makes up the snippet then they could show anything.
i read on htmlgoodies that META tags aren't helpful anymore, it used to be, but new crawlers techno just simply ignores your meta tags
When google indexes new pages on my sites they always use the meta tags for the descriptions in the serps. This is pretty clear evidence to me that meta tags are still used.
You can test this yourself. Search in google (for example) for digitalpoint. The snippet you see displayed is the meta description. I wouldn't believe everything you read, especially about seo. If you have your own site, changing that is a good way to test things out.
Why would anyone take the risk and not use meta tags? Clearly there are no downsides to them so if some people say they are still used and some people say they aren't why not just be on the safe side and use them?
when i read people's META tags, it has like a ton of things in the descriptor, so, does google look at those descriptions when they crawl thru ur site? or does it ignore them and just display the discription of ur page?
Yes, google does read the meta description tag and use it. The tag should be written for humans and limited to the amount of text that shows in the snippet next to the search results.
The only major search engine which does not use meta tags is msn. As for Google and Yahoo, meta tags are extremely important. The meta description will display underneath your ad on SERPs, and the meta keywords will tell the SEs what your site is relevant to. It is also very important to make sure you are properly using your meta tags. You should keep your "keyword" and "description" fields under 250 characters, and NEVER keyword spam in either field. In your "keywords" field put your most important keywords at the front of the list, and do not use duplicates or irrelevant phrases. Having optimized meta tags will make a world of difference in your Google rankings!
djpromo, that's good information. I did not realize MSN differed from Yahoo and Google in this way. To me it seems that meta tags could be abused just like hidden div layers are abused. What is wrong with that thinking?
Do a google search for meta tags google. Visit the first two results and view the source code. Read what the meta tags say. It is very funny and it proves a good point.